


It's About Us

by starforged



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: AU, F/M, Game Spoilers, One Shot Collection, Post-Canon, Tumblr Prompt, snippets of their life and relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starforged/pseuds/starforged
Summary: A one-shot collection about the life and times of Sara Ryder and Liam Kosta





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: date night is ruined by pirates

“Something doesn’t feel right.” Sara’s hands are firmly placed on her hips as she surveys their area.  


Liam looks up from the blanket he’s still smoothing out - well, more like trying to hold down. Eos is still windy. And sandy. And it’s definitely fighting Liam and the picnic he’s tried to set up for them. 

“Uh.” He looks at the food. He looks at her. “It’s not exactly the most ideal location, but since we were here to see Gil and Jill, I just assumed–”  


Sara winces and slaps a hand to her face. Hard. “Ow - no! Not you, Kosta. Well, maybe you.”

Liam gets to his feet, brushing his hands on the knees of his pants before reaching out to her, fingers gentle against the reddening of her skin. There’s concern for her, but mostly there’s confusion. “You lost me, Sara. Also, you get shot at enough that you _really_ don’t need to hurt yourself.”

“I just meant, you know. 9 times out of 10, our dates are a little disastrous. Aya, the cave on Voeld–”  


“Hey, now that one turned out fine. We got to explore exactly how much body heat we could generate.”  


Months with this man, and he still finds a way to make her blush, memories of that frigid night coming back to her. The way his mouth moves, in something like a smirk, tells her that he’s thinking the same thing. 

“It just feels too quiet,” Sara tells him.  


He takes her hand, kisses her knuckles gently, and leads her to the blanket. “Enjoy it while it lasts. I made this not-quite fancy lunch for us, we’re all alone, and it’s a nice day. If sandy.”

Sara bites her lip and follows him down. She is hungry. And she does need quiet time with him. Then again, when _doesn’t_ she need quiet time with him? Or any time, really. 

“Sometimes I forget that we can just. Breathe.” She accepts the sandwich he offers her - beef, acquired by Vetra no doubt - and stares out at the growing fields of flowers that have begun to sprout on Eos. They did this. All of them. They can breathe, and they can enjoy the quiet, and they can have downtime with people who matter the most because of them.  


“You know, have I told you how beautiful you are today?” Liam whispers in her ear, pressing a kiss to the line of her jaw.  


A grin spreads across her face, fast as a pyjack running off with food. “I think only once this morning.”

“I am _slacking_.”  


“Well, well. Ain’t this _cute?”_ The voice definitely isn’t hers, and it’s not Liam’s.  


In unison, they both look up to see a small group of raiders. How they were quiet enough to sneak up on them is beyond her? 

A pistol is aimed at her face. “This is a robbery, by the way.”

They’re not in gear, but Liam and Sara know not to go anywhere unarmed. Even without guns within reach, she has her biotics, he has his grenades. The omni-tools. Their wits.

With pursed lips, she gives her boyfriend a pointed stare. “I _told_ you.”

Liam givers her a careless shrug before turning an exasperated look at the pirate in command. “Look what you’ve done. Now she’s telling me ‘I told you so’s. Thanks, pal.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post break up au liam/sara - i kissed you goodbye by accident - old habits die hard okay?!?!

“You got it, Pathfinder.”  


Sara smiles, Liam’s voice still softening on the word even after these couple of months. It’s nice that they can still be friends. That they can put aside their feelings, what they could have had, for the greater good of the Initiative. 

She’s accepting the report from him, hand outstretched for the datapad. 

And he’s leaning in too close suddenly. 

She can breathe him in at this range, and it sends every nerve ending on fire. His scent is permanently ingrained in her memories, and a million of them flare up all at once. 

His mouth is on hers, gentle, not demanding. It’s a quick peck, a goodbye kiss. The kind that leave you needing more, that bring you to life even as it ends the conversation. He liked to laugh and tell her that if he left her wanting more, goodbye would never be for long.

Those ended when she ended them.

_I can’t do this right now, Liam. There’s too much–_

_It’s okay, Sara. I know. I’m here for you, however you need me. Friends first._

Friends don’t kiss each other like that, with emotion.

His face still hovers too close to her, but she can see the panic in his beautiful gaze as he watches her in return.

“That… I didn’t mean that. I mean, it was just - It was reflex, Sara,” Liam apologizes, tripping over every word as he says them.  


It makes it even worse. Had he just left, accepting it and not calling attention to it, she could have ignored it. She’s going to ignore it. This, them, she can’t still. The fear in his eyes when she died, the exhaustion that takes her over every now and then. She can’t put that on Liam, and she can’t put his needs on herself either. 

“It’s fine. Yeah. It’s just a kiss, Liam. We’ve kissed before.”  


“Yeah, yeah we have. Right, so I won’t do that again.”  


He winces.

She winces.

“Unless you want me to. Whenever, Sara.” Liam rests a hand on her shoulder, briefly, before taking a step back. He runs that same hand through his tight curls, rubbing it against his scalp.   


There’s a definite heaviness she associates with disappoint that settles in her stomach. It was reflex. He won’t do it again. That should be the answer she wants, but it’s not. 

Sara forces herself to grin, shoving her fist into his shoulder lightly. “Old habits, Kosta. Seriously, it’s not a big deal.”

He grins back, beautiful, bright, a hint of _oh shit_  and sadness still in his gaze. 

If he doesn’t walk away right this second, she’s going to compromise them both. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 69\. “Why the hell are you bleeding!?” - sara/liam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mild blood content warning. also took some creative embellishments on subconjunctival hemorrhaging :|b

The nosebleeds aren’t frequent, but they’re as normal as anything else is these days for Sara. So when she feels that familiar itch against her skin as _something_  begins to trail down her face, she doesn’t even think about it. Lexi told her it would be normal. 

She swipes a hand at her face, trying to rub it off before anyone sees it. Her friends have outrageous reactions to every little thing, and having to keep up this charade that she’s okay is only a little exhausting at this point. 

Except the heel of her hand wipes from her nose to her cheek and down her jaw. Except that she doesn’t feel blood until she gets to her cheek. And as far as she knows, she hasn’t been injured on her face recently. 

“Sara!”  


“Liam.” His name is more of a breathy sigh than a response.   


“Holy - _Sara_.”  


That doesn’t help to settle her nerves. 

“Pathfinder, your heart rate has spiked. It is not in a good way,” SAM says, both in her head and outside of it. Or maybe that’s just her experiencing it this way.   


The world spins for a second before it rights itself, But Liam is already at her side, worry etched into every line of his face. She’s sure SAM can tell that _his_  heart rate has spiked, and not in a good.

“Yeah,” she says, “thanks, SAM. Got it, anxiety.”  


Liam’s arm is around her waist, supporting her, keeping her on her feet. She almost tells him she’s fine now, but she likes when his arm is there. Or anywhere, really. 

“Sara, why the _hell_  are you bleeding _out of your eyes?”_  


It’s an excellent question. She doesn’t have an answer for it. Nosebleeds she has come to expect. That’s fine, that’s… Well it’s not actually normal, but it’s Pathfinder normal.

“Uh,” is all she can come up with. “It doesn’t really feel like a lot?”  


“It is perhaps linked to the overall effect of using Remnant technology without my aid, Liam. Sara exerted much of herself in commanding ships.”  


Even after she had called them up, she could feel the ships, as if they were inside of her. The thrum of power, the delicate but necessary control she had over something she couldn’t understand.

“Your eye is… Red.”  


“That would be the blood. You know, from the bleeding. In my eyeball,” Sara points out.  


He doesn’t look like he wants to be amused, but there’s the smallest of twitches at the corner of his beautiful mouth. So she kisses it. 

“Oh, no, you don’t get to distract me from even more places you’re going to bleed from just because you think I’m cute.”  


“How do you know it’s because I think you cute?”  


He levels a stare at her, but there’s definitely a grin now. Better that than worry. Better that than having to talk about what’s happening in her head right now. “I know you. I also know I’m cute.”

What she wants more than anything is to wrap her arms around his neck and press her face into his shoulder, but the whole white shirt, bloody eye thing is probably a terrible idea. So she resists. 

“Knowledge is definitely dangerous to have sometimes, Kosta.”  


He cups her chin, leaning in so that he can brush a kiss against her forehead. “Okay, first off, we’re going to get you clean.”

“And then?”  


“And then we’re going to see Lexi because I also know that this isn’t the best sign, and I know I’m going to have to hold your hand to do this,” Liam tells her, and she sighs.   


“Also because you like holding my hand.”  


“It’s an incredibly nice hand.”  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam wants to be there for her, but he doesn't want to overwhelm her.

The brave face lasts only long enough until all meetings, all verbal exchanges, all the crew has shuffled away because they _know_  it’s about to crumble or because Drack growls at them, low and deep. It even keeps Lexi at bay after a while, after the initial poking and prodding and fluttering hands. 

Liam knows this because he stays back a few steps, enough to keep out of the way, enough to not catch Drack’s attention. Enough to let Sara know he’s _here_  but not in her face like everyone else. They did - it was too much. It’s been less than a day, and he already feels the cold sweat of nightmares covering his skin like a suit. It’s the experimentation on the salarians. Their deaths. It’s the exaltation process half-perfected on a krogan. It’s losing a Pathfinder.

It’s watching Sara agree to have SAM stop her heart.

It’s how quick she went, alive and beautiful and determined.

Slack.

On the floor. 

Liam was useless in the face of death. He couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t get to her when SAM couldn’t get her heart starting again. 

It’s Sara smiling and joking and congratulating everyone and waving Lexi off because she’s _fine_.

It’s the closed door of her quarters that don’t open when he approaches them. 

So Liam takes a seat on the floor, his back against the door. One leg stretches out while the other bends close to his chest. She’s inside of there, alone. Again, alone. He gets it. He gets it as well as he can get it, at least, not having been dead himself and resurrected before. But he’s seen it happen, and he knows the effects. 

And honestly, he knows what he feels inside of himself. The tightness in his chest, the nightmare sweat when he hasn’t even slept yet, her face flashing before his eyes. No light. No movement. 

He writes her an email. It soothes him. The email takes him a half hour. The right words have never come to him before, and now he has to painstakingly choose what he needs to say.

After an hour, his lower half has fallen asleep. He stares down the hallway. A few of the crew have come to check on him, but they never say anything. He wonders if it’s because they’re worried they’ll be too loud and Sara will hear. 

After three hours, he presses his cheek to the metal door. He gets up, stretching his legs out. He should climb onto his couch, hide away for a bit, sleep. 

Once the blood flows again, he sits back down. 

“I love you,” he whispers softly to the doors. He doesn’t really need anyone else to listen to his confession. “I don’t want to say it took you dying to make me realize that, but I’ve been trying to go at us slowly. Love is a big word. It can mean a lot of things. I loved you before that moment, just - Not this way. Not in the kind of cheesy romantic movie way.”  


He’s quiet for a few moments, listening for her. 

“I love your strength and your attitude and your friendship. I love you as the Pathfinder. I’ve never been in _love_  before, though. I don’t know what that feels like. Well, now I think I do. But before? No. And I didn’t want to say it for any reason, and now the reason I am saying it to you - sort of to you - isn’t exactly right either. I should say it for your strength and your attitude and what you’ve given me. I love the weird faces you make and your inability to drive straight. I love that you told off the Archon when you were physically unable to do anything to him. I love that you’ve found us a home and you’re fighting for it.”  


He scrubs a hand over his face, hard. He’s not a speech guy. He feels stupid saying this to nobody. She’s probably not even listening. She should be asleep.

“I’m no good at this, but I’m trying,” he tells her.   


He hears footsteps from behind the door. He expects the door to open, so he doesn’t move. He falls halfway into her quarters, staring up at her swollen red face with half a smile on her lips. 

“Terrible timing, Kosta,” she admonishes.   


“I told you I’m not good at this.”  


She gets to her knees, hands on either side of his head. Her hair is down. It falls like a sheet over him. “It’s a good thing I’m a cheesy romantic movie kind of girl.”

“I’ve had this same thought every time I’ve done something stupid.” Liam grins up at her.  


“Speaking of stupid, why didn’t you just knock?”   


“Uh.”  


Sara’s laugh is a relief that slides through his body and eases the ache in his chest. 


End file.
